I've been wanting to write a post like this for a while, but never really had the time to do it. Since the early maintenance is upon us, I figure now is as good a time as any to put this out there.
There seems to be a lot of misconceptions and/or ideas about how the whole gilselling/RMT system works. As a businessman, I like to look into how things work and how things operate. I travel extensively into China/Asia, and I've actually seen how some of these operations work, and some of you might be surprised. While some of you have a good idea about what goes on, this is just to inform some of you guys that think all RMT are chinese kids that need rice to eat for the evening.
As a side note: I do not participate in RMT, nor have a bought gil. From a business standpoint, RMT is a very real and lucrative business, and knowing how it works intrigues me. I guess I should put this in here too since I'm getting called out for "generalizing the ins and outs of gilfarming." This is in no way how ALL RMT works. Like any business, there are those that find different routes to earn money. There are some willing to work harder than others, and there are those who like to get others to do the work for them. This post a just a basic framework of how most RMT work.
RMT operate by hiring a bunch of chinese kids to farm gil in a tiny room filled with countless computers
False. From a business standpoint, putting a bunch of computers in a room and paying for a subscription for each one makes no sense. Besides the cost for all these computers, there would be a cost for each subscription. Most of these guys that start RMT do not have that kind of cash.
How does it work then?
Well, the basic way that these guys do it is to get others to farm for them, and the RMT buys the gil off those players. Confused? Ok, RMT company, lets name it GIL4SALE is offering to buy gil at a rate of $10usd per million gil. Player A sees this and starts to use bots to farm shards and sell them on the market board. Assuming Player A makes 10 million gil a day farming shards, he now sells the 10 million to GIL4SALE and makes $100usd. This goes on for a few days before Player A gets banned, and has probably made enough to get a new account to do it all over again.
Player B doesn't have the balls to run bots like Player A, but what he does have is a level 50 crafter in all crafts. So Player B starts crafting to earn a fortune to turn into real money. The chances he gets caught are a lot less, but it takes him more time to earn the same amount as Player A.
Player C was a regular player, but saw GIL4SALE's advertisement, and decides he might as well make a little side cash while playing a game. Player C has a level 50 PLD with a static group that can get through all content in the game. Figures that if he and his group sells wins for hard fights, they can all make some real life money.
Before some of you guys get all defensive about titan sells and whatnot, this is just a general overview on how it works. Not saying all people selling wins or selling high priced crafted gear are gilsellers, but there are some.
RMT is ruining the economy by selling cheap materials. The RMT has a goal to crash the economy, thereby making you buy only from them
You're overthinking it. RMT doesn't give two shits about the economy of a game. They are in it for the pure purpose of making real money. They go where the money is, and right now, the money is in FFXIV. People are willing to buy, and that's all they care about. There is no ulterior motive to sabotage your economy.
What about the bots and hacks?
Most of these bots and hacks are made by regular players. Not the RMT themselves. Regular players search for these bots and hacks and run them to earn gil so they can in turn, sell them to the RMT company. There are people that buy the game just for the purpose of making real money. OK to clarify, I'm not debating the fact that larger RMT companies use more sophisticated methods like bot swarms/farms. There are definitely more shady RMT companies that have their own methods of obtaining gil, but this is more of a basic framework of how RMT works.
Here's an interesting little story. I travel to China several times a year to buy goods and import them. Some of the places I go, they look like giant shopping centers with rows and rows of stalls selling goods. Every floor has 50-100 stalls, and each building has 5-10 floors. Each stall has a worker who sits there waiting for customers every day. It gets boring for them, so they have a laptop to keep them entertained. Some of them use the laptop to watch TV. Some use it to do business (online sales). Some of them play MMOs like LoL and WoW. I didn't think much of it until I started to see these guys running bots in the background while they were talking to me. These guys were making side cash by playing video games, and a lot of them were doing it. They do it pretty much for the sole purpose of making extra money.
There are a lot of these RMT companies, and many of them are chinese owned (since the laws are extremely lax there), but many of the ones selling gil to the RMT companies are from all over. US, EU, JP...everywhere. There are always going to be people looking for a way to make a quick buck. If they can make it while playing a video game...hey, thats even better. This is why SE takes so long to ban RMT and they ban them in waves. There are a lot more people behind it than the ones shouting advertisements.
Originally Posted by TheOperator3712
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